(photo credit: pcw.gov.ph)
IN rites of exorcism, the priest (the exorcist) orders and demands that the demon give up its name and speak it. Once the name is given, the exorcist gains power of him and can control him and order him to leave the human host.
That is the power of a name. The Civil Code gives a married woman the option to take her husband’s name, or to yphenate it, or, not to change it at all. This is significant because there was a time when a married woman would be called Mrs.
Her-Husband’sLast-Name or nothing at all. Yet the option has been available to women since the Civil Code was enacted.
Tracing a woman’s heritage has always been problematic because by marriage, in the Philippines, she is deemed to have joined her husband’s family. Thus it is, that a woman takes on the last name of a man and like the rite of being given away, trades one man’s name for that of another man. At least this is how it is in the Catholic mainstream.
This Women’s Month, perhaps its time to consider a new practice, of keeping women’s names of keeping our identities our own and no longer linked to that of the men in our lives.
In that sense, we name and regain power over ourselves. PSSST!CENTRO celebrates Women’s Month.
(Source : PSSST! Centro)
To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ
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